William Gay - Provinces of Night

I don’t want to even be around you, Brady said. All I want to know is why you told all those lies on me.

The old man was dumbfounded. Hellfire, boy, I don’t even know what you’re talking about. Lies to who? I can’t remember saying anything about you, truth or lies either one.

That’s funny. That cattle buyer, Coble, he remembers it word for word. How crazy I am. Babtizin cows and chickens. Preachin to stumps. Where’d you come up with all that mess? I knew you were evil and worthless but I never knew you were totally insane.

The old man was silent a long time, hands on knees, stick propped against his leg. How to begin. Finally he said, Boy, that wasn’t about you. That didn’t have anything to do with you. I don’t really know why I made that stuff up, but it wasn’t even about me. It was about a man named Rutgers who wanted a ride to Tennessee.

All that crazy stuff about me marryin bulls and cows. Readin at them out of a Bible. Did that man really sit there and believe all that nonsense?

Bloodworth permitted himself a small smile. He eat ever bit of it and set there holdin his bowl and spoon wantin more, he said.

Well. I believe he’s about had a bait of it now. He’s makin trouble.

I figured after a while he’d just laugh it off.

No. For some strange reason he don’t see the humor in it. You took him hundreds of miles out of his way and worse than that you made a fool out of him.

Hell, I didn’t make him, Bloodworth said. He was a fool when I got there.

He thinks you’re crazy and he’s goin to do all he can to get you into trouble. He thinks you ought to be put away somewhere, and I agree with him. All the lies you told about me, then that remark the other day about company. I knew what kind of company you meant, you never needed but one kind. Women. Shooting off a pistol like you was doing last night. You are crazy.

I’ll just pay him his ride bill and be done with him, the old man said.

That’s not what he wants.

Then to hell with him. The only reason he done it to begin with was because he thought my back was against the wall so hard I was goin to practically give him a herd of Black Angus cows. Damn them cows anyway. I wish I’d never even thought of them.

In truth the old man felt a certain amount of guilt about the story he’d concocted. Long after telling it he’d remembered that Brady as a youngster used to preach funerals for runover dogs, writing sermons in tablets to read at them, said prayers over roadkill animals. He wondered if all this hadn’t in some manner seeped up out of his memory and colored what he was saying to Coble. The hell with it anyway, he thought. If it did it did. It was just one more misstep in a long line of missteps and there was nothing he could do about it now.

His idea was for us to get a lawyer and have you declared incompetent. Have the court appoint somebody to see after your business.

I guess you’d be a fine candidate for that, the old man said. You couldn’t see after the business a settin hen could accumulate.

None of it matters anyway, Brady said. You’re fixin to die. You’d be dead before the ink could dry on the paperwork. I run it out in the cards. Worse yet, you’re goin straight to hell. When I look at you settin there now it’s like you’re already on your way. Comin into the city limits of hell. Your hair’s startin to singe and little blue flames are flickerin all over you. Smoke boilin out of your ears. Your blood’ll boil and your brain snap and pop like grease in a hot pan. Your bones’ll burn white-hot and just burn through your flesh.

The old man struggled up. Get away from me, he said, and although he tried to keep the contempt out of his voice he could not.

WITH THE SHIFT in the seasons Fleming brought saw and axe and began to cut the old man’s winter wood. He felled blackjack and red oak and cut them to length with the bucksaw and split the cuts and ricked the wood behind the trailer. Working in the woods seemed to bring purpose to the days, a sense of order. He cut dead pine for kindling and a red cedar whose closegrained oily wood gave off a rich exotic odor that evoked some vague memory he could not get a fix on.

Finally the old man stopped him saying he’d never live long enough to burn such a pile of wood as the boy was accumulating. It was just as well for the rains of November began and the world turned bleak and somber, the woodsmoke from Bloodworth’s heater clinging to the ground in the damp heavy air. It seemed to rain every day and the days shortened and seemed to be perpetually dimming so that it was impossible to tell the exact moment that night fell. There were days he sat in the house watching rain string off the eaves and he was touched with a desperate and growing unease. The rain fell with an unvarying intensity until it seemed that the weathers of his world had coalesced in this mode and it had become a rain without a proper beginning or end and crossing through it to check on Bloodworth he moved always with the rushing of rain in the unwinded trees like a dark unmetered poetry of the woods.

WHEN FLEMING got out of the cab in Itchy Mama’s yard he closed the car door and stood for a moment staring past the hills toward the southwest. It was no more than midafternoon but the world had darkened save for a band of light that lay above the horizon. A bitter wind had swept the drunks from Itchy Mama’s porch and it rattled beercans hollowly against the stone steps and blew scraps of paper like dirty snow. Birds alighting about the trees were soon off again restlessly as if they’d had word of ill weathers that had not reached the world at large.

He went up the steps and crossed the porch and rapped at the loose screen door. Come in here, Itchy Mama yelled. Everybody else has. When he went in he saw that the cold wind had blown the sots and derelicts not to homes if they had them but to Itchy Mama’s front room, where they were ill-contained on ragged couches and easy chairs and even hunkered against the walls. He went past them acknowledging their greetings and comments about the falling temperature with an upraised hand and to the kitchen where Itchy Mama was slicing ham into an enormous iron skillet.

What are you doin out?

I’m just out, he said. Why wouldn’t I be? I didn’t know the world was coming to an end till I saw all those refugees camped out in there. Have they not ever been cold before?

Don’t you listen to the radio? They got warnins out about a ice storm. Done hit Alabama.

It looks like it’s hit your front room. That bunch looks ready to start breaking up chairs for firewood.

You better be checkin on your grandpa.

I just came from there. He said he’s denned up like a badger and dragging the dirt in after him. And he didn’t even need a radio.

You might ought to be huntin a hole yourself.

He smiled slightly at this and gestured toward the coffee pot. I thought I’d stop by a minute and see if you’d sell me a cup of coffee.

No, I’ll give you one. Give you a cup of coffee or a drink of whiskey either one. Which do you want?

I guess I’ll take the coffee, he said.

But she had produced from between her huge breasts a flat halfpint of clear whiskey. She tilted it to study the bead.

You don’t have a cup of coffee down there, do you?

Here. Take a little dram of this. It’s heated to body temperature already and it’ll go down like sweet milk. I’d even put a nipple on it if you wanted.

He took the bottle she was proffering. It did indeed feel warm to his touch. He unscrewed the cap and drank and stood by the window looking out to where the wind blew the cold trees. All the monochromatic world seemed in motion.